1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to food preparation and specifically to a method of forming biscuits using a mold and a cutter designed to cooperate with the mold to form a plurality of biscuits wherein a predetermined amount of a biscuit dough is prepared using a packaged mix which when kneaded with water and placed within the mold will fill the mold to an appropriate level so that the biscuits created by the cutter will be of uniform quality and size when baked.
2. History of the Prior Art
The present invention has its primary utility in use with fast-food restaurant services. One of the most popular items currently available in fast-food restaurants are biscuits. Many franchise systems have developed elaborate advertising campaigns to encourage the sale of various biscuit type meals especially for breakfast.
The problem associated with preparing mass quantities of biscuits is that the uniformity and quality of the dough from which the biscuits are made varies from batch to batch. When dealing with large volumes, the amount of waste which results from making biscuits due to trimmings and excesses of dough which are severed from rolled dough by a biscuit cutter adds significantly to the cost of the preparation of the biscuits. In addition if such excess dough is reintroduced into a fresh batch of dough the reworked portion of the batch may adversely effect the overall quality of the resulting biscuits.
In prior art biscuit making processes, biscuits were made from scratch by individuals having a talent or being trained to combine the appropriate ingredients based upon whatever biscuit recipe was used. In high volume fast-food restaurants, it is desirable to provide a biscuit dough which is of uniform quality from batch to batch regardless of the individual who is preparing each batch. This uniformity should not only extend from person to person but from franchise establishment to franchise establishment, or from restaurant to restaurant.
There have been a number of prior art devices which have been developed to produce a quantity of biscuits in a single cutting. In U.S. Pat. 337,329 to Hewett, a biscuit cutter is disclosed having a plurality of hexagonally shaped cutting elements which are joined into a single cutter. In use, the biscuit cutter of Hewett could effectively operate to cut a plurality of hexagonally shaped from a single rolled layer of biscuit dough. Other prior art biscuit cutters are similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 1,299,802 to Smith. Such cutters as disclosed in Smith include a plurality of molds or cutter elements of cylindrical shape which are moveably mounted with respect to a supporting surface where the dough has been rolled and ready for cutting. Other examples of prior art cutting devices include U.S. Pat. No. 1,399,449 to Trethewey; and 1,477,693 to Clark.
Through the use of the aforementioned biscuit cutters, it can be seen that a plurality of biscuits may be cut from a rolled layer of biscuit dough. The problem remains, however, that for each cut made with the cutting elements, an excess amount of dough would be left to either be reworked or discarded. In addition, there is no cooperation taught between a predetermined amount of biscuit mix and the volume of a biscuit mold to insure a uniform size and quality of the dough being used to make the biscuits, and, therefore, the quality and size of biscuit, obtained with prior art biscuit preparation methods depends upon the ingredients and amounts used in each batch.